Sunday, March 15, 2009

It's about time for another developmental update, not to mention another cute picture of Mr. C smiling. Mr. C has become a food-eating champ. He has moved beyond ordinary baby food and can easily handle crackers, banana bites, and even small finger veggies like peas, carrots, and broccoli. Mom E and I were quite impressed by Mr. C's enthusiasm for veggies. His foray into broccoli remined me of an old video I took of Little I when he was this age. He was also an advanced eater, especially since he already had top and bottom biters by 6 months. As you can see, Little I's reception of broccoli was not nearly as warm as Mr. C's was.

In fact, even now it's a struggle to get Little I to eat his "little trees," despite the fact that I tell him that giraffes and dinosaurs eat trees.

In further baby developmental news, Mr. C has started clapping and has a fine pincer grasp. Also, he has finally managed to turn from his back to his stomach, which is a big step towards crawling. He continues to do extremely well sitting up, but hasn't figured out how to get there without assistance. Rather than use his hands to walk himself up to a sitting position from his stomach, Mr. C tries to do a straight power-crunch from his back. The result is undoubtedly a wonderful Pilates move--one that Mr. C can hold for an admiralably long time. But as you can imagine, Mr. C simply doesn't have the power to power-crunch his way up to a sitting position. Mom E, who is in a Pilates class herself, has optimistically said that Mr. C is building a really strong "core."

Sunday, March 1, 2009

This morning, the Robertsons awoke to a treat: Two inches of snow had fallen overnight and an additional two inches were predicted to fall by noon! Friends and family from Pennsylvania, New Mexico, and Finland just shrugged their shoulders. "So what?" Right? Well, consider that I've been living in Alabama for the past twelve years and I can only remember one other snowfall in the state that was of snowman-building quality and quantity. That is a long time. Also, Little I has never experienced snow in Alabama; one time we saw some flurries, and I tried to get Little I excited about the "snow," but he kept wondering what the fuss was about. There was no difficulty getting Little I excited this time. Snow!?! "I want to touch," he said as we opened the window to grab some. Build a snowman? "Yes! And a pumpkin," he told me driving home from church. What? "Daddy shave snow off car," he explained. This was going to be a lot of fun. We got home and bundled up to build a snowman. Little I was very excited, even after I told him we couldn't build a pumpkin. Making a snowman consisted of me pushing boulders of snow while Little I ran around with some neighborhood kids who were also making snowmen. At one point he tried to throw a snowball at one of the kid's granfathers, but I think he missed. Mom E and Mr. C joined us for a few pictures before we made a break for the warm house. After we had come inside, Little I took a toy baseball and basketball and stacked them to make his own snowman. The beauty of his indoor snowman was the basketball served as his "pumpkin." Unfortunately, as I write this blog entry, the snow that stopped falling at noon has already melted. It has become a sunny March day, and our towering snowman, if not already a watery carrot salad, is certainly a remnant of what he once was. We'll miss you Birmingham blizzard of 2009. We'll anxiously await your return in 2015.